Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One and Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Bertram is also the author of the suspense novels Unfinished, Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare, Light Bringer, Daughter Am I, More Deaths Than One, and A Spark of Heavenly Fire.

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I have never been a risk taker. I do not like pain or discomfort of any kind — not taunts, not scoldings, not broken bones, not cuts, not illness. For most of my life, my adventures were the literary kind, and oh, I was intrepid. Actually, that’s not true. I never identified as the hero. I was always sort of a companion, analyzing the risks and trying to figure out how not to have gotten into the scrapes the character did, and thinking about how I would get myself out the situation.

The habit of analyzing risks followed me into real life. For example, although I had no aptitude for dancing when I was young and there was no way for me to take dance classes, I’d still decided at a young age that dancing wasn’t for me. I didn’t want the foot pain and bleeding toes, the horrendous hours of work, and all the rest that goes into being a dancer. I still don’t want any of that. As dedicated as I am about taking dance classes now, at the first sign of debilitating pain (other than the muscle aches from too many plies), that will be it.

Even before I fell and broke my arm, I’d fall-proofed wherever I lived — stayed away from area rugs, made sure the night time trek from bed to bathroom was completely open. Now I have bars in the bathtub, but I’d always been careful getting in and out of the shower, been especially careful picking up soap if I dropped it because I knew that’s how and where most home injuries occurred.

How did I know all this? I have always been a researcher. And I think things through and rethink things to the point of overthinking.

That being said, the truth is, there is no way to avoid risk. Many terrible things have happened to me over the years, from being held up at gunpoint, to having to deal with devastating grief when Jeff died, and most recently, the destruction of my arm. Everything bad that has ever happened to me has happened in the city, sometimes even when I was with someone else.

If I were still with Jeff, or if I hadn’t had to deal with the horrors of grief, my adventurous spirit might never have been kindled, but now the wild woman in me is struggling to get out. I have an inordinate desire to live. To experience. To be. To become.

I realize this call to adventure (whatever the adventure might be) involves more risks than reading in bed (though I have known people who broke hips when they fell out of bed), but all I can do is minimize the risks. As I have always done, I research ways to be safe, I imagine myself in precarious situations, learn what others have done and what I would do to get out of them. Even following a well established trail, it’s easy to get lost (as many people have discovered too late), but my years of venturing into the nearby desert have taught me to mark the way back to the trail if I have to leave it, to pay attention to my tracks (and the tracks of other creatures).

I make sure my cell phone is fully charged, and I am always wary, never acting as if I am in a safe place, though the truth is, I am safer wandering in the desert than I am in the city. (A lot safer than driving, that’s for sure!) The most dangerous thing I do is cross a street. I’m not joking here. To get to the dance studio, I have to cross one of the busiest and most dangerous intersections in town where six roads with multiple lanes meet, cars going all directions, and no cross walk. (Sometimes I jaywalk, which is safer, unless I’m caught, and then I face an $80 fine).

I have driven cross country alone, hiked in national parks and wild places alone. I have camped alone. It’s not as if I have no experience being alone in potentially dangerous places, but still, people worry about me.

Don’t get me wrong — I appreciate the concern. I really do. It’s pleasing — and comforting — to know that people care. Lately, though, so many people have cautioned my about putting myself at risk, that I’m getting scared. And I don’t want to be.

Of course I’m at risk, and I will be at even greater risk when I take my trip in May, but so what? I can’t live my life in fear of something bad happening to me. I take more than reasonable precautions, but I will not be bounded by fear, mine or anyone else’s. If something happens, will it be worse than Jeff dying? Will it be worse than being held up at gunpoint? Will it be worse than destroying my arm? Will it be worse than living in fear? Will it be worse than stagnating, worse than squandering this opportunity of freedom where I am still healthy enough to go where adventure calls, worse than squandering myself?

I understand that terrible things could be waiting for me out there, and if any of those things happen, I’ll deal with it then.

But think of this. What if I can handle whatever comes as I have always done? What if nothing bad happens? What if something wonderful is waiting for me if I only have the courage to grab hold of adventure and life?

So yes, please worry about me, but don’t forget to encourage me, too. I need both.

Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One debunks many established beliefs about what grief is, explains how it affects those left behind, and shows how to adjust to a world that no longer contains the loved one. “It is exactly what folk need to read who are grieving.”(Leesa Heely Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator ).

Other books by Pat Bertram

Available online wherever books and ebooks are sold.

Grief: The Great Yearning is not a how-to but a how-done, a compilation of letters, blog posts, and journal entries Pat Bertram wrote while struggling to survive her first year of grief. This is an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.

While sorting through her deceased husband’s effects, Amanda is shocked to discover a gun and the photo of an unknown girl who resembles their daughter. After dedicating her life to David and his vocation as a pastor, the evidence that her devout husband kept secrets devastates Amanda. But Amanda has secrets of her own. . .

When Pat’s adult dance classmates discover she is a published author, the women suggest she write a mystery featuring the studio and its aging students. One sweet older lady laughingly volunteers to be the victim, and the others offer suggestions to jazz up the story. Pat starts writing, and then . . . the murders begin.

Thirty-seven years after being abandoned on the doorstep of a remote cabin in Colorado, Becka Johnson returns to try to discover her identity, but she only finds more questions. Who has been looking for her all those years? And why are those same people interested in fellow newcomer Philip Hansen?

When twenty-five-year-old Mary Stuart learns she inherited a farm from her recently murdered grandparents -- grandparents her father claimed had died before she was born -- she becomes obsessed with finding out who they were and why someone wanted them dead.

In quarantined Colorado, where hundreds of thousands of people are dying from an unstoppable, bio-engineered disease, investigative reporter Greg Pullman risks everything to discover the truth: Who unleashed the deadly organism? And why?

Bob Stark returns to Denver after 18 years in SE Asia to discover that the mother he buried before he left is dead again. At her new funeral, he sees . . . himself. Is his other self a hoaxer, or is something more sinister going on?